Iowa judge rules gvt docs must list mother’s wife as child’s 'parent'

DES MOINES, December 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A district judge in Iowa has ordered the state to list a lesbian couple as the parents of a stillborn child on his death certificate.

Polk County District Judge Robert Hutchison justified his order under the state’s same-sex “marriage” ruling.

“Since biology is the only relevant difference between a mother’s husband and a mother’s wife,” he ruled, both “are similarly situated as non-gestational parents.”

Jessica Buntemeyer of Davenport gave birth to a stillborn child, Brayden, in October 2011. The Iowa Department of Public Health (DPH) listed only the birth mother and father, against the wishes of Jessica and her “wife,” Jenny.

Iowa death certificates list only “mother” and “father.” DPH argued adding a second “mother” would be inefficient and biologically misleading.

The following February, the Buntemeyers sued with the help of Lambda Legal, a homosexual legal lobby group, arguing the state’s same-sex “marriage” law entitled both “parents” to be listed on the certificate.

In his 20-page ruling, Hutchison wrote that Varnum v. Brien, the case that imposed same-sex “marriage” on Iowa against the will of most citizens, required “equal protection” for both “parents,” regardless of whether they were biologically related to the child.

Since state officials usually accept the father’s name on the mother’s “attestation,” he wrote, “biology is only minimally related to a Certificate’s documentary purpose.”

However, DPH estimates the mother’s husband is the biological father in some 95 percent of all certificates.

“A mother’s wife is a female parent,” he wrote. “The precise legal consequences accompanying her parentage are undefined at this time.”

The state must now list all three parents on Brayden’s death certificate. The precedent will establish that the state must list non-biological same-sex partners as “parents” on future state records.